The west wind swept snow flurries against Atonement Academy's mottled earthen walls. The dead grass atop the walls trembled in the wind like a cluster of huddled prisoners.
What came from the academy courtyard was not the sound of reading, but the sharp crack of whips slicing through the air, mingled with stifled groans.
More than thirty youths knelt in the snow. The youngest were only seven or eight, while the oldest were no more than fifteen or sixteen.
The backs beneath their stripped shirts were already a mangled mess of flesh and blood. Dark purple whip marks crisscrossed them, old wounds layered beneath new ones, scabs split open again by the lashes, while the Blood Beads seeping out rapidly froze in the cold wind.
The man wielding the whip was short and burly, his face full of brutish flesh. The blood-red vine whip in his hand had been soaked in salt water. Every lash sent fine sprays of blood flying.
"Remember this pain!" the man rasped. "The sins your ancestors committed must be repaid with your flesh and blood!"
After the final lash fell, the man tossed the bloody whip onto the snow. "Food!"
Two servants carried out wooden buckets.
One held blackened steamed buns mixed with grain husks. The other contained vegetable soup so thin it reflected people's shadows, with a few rotten leaves floating on top.
The food distributed by the academy was mostly leftovers meant for pigs and dogs. Descendants of Sin Blood did not deserve clean food.
And there was never enough food to go around; it was always short by seven or eight portions.
The youths pounced on the buckets like starving beasts. They grabbed with their hands, scooped food into their shirt fronts, shoved and tore at one another. A scrawny boy had